


coin operated boy

by Missnoodles



Series: coin operated boy [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Bad Parent Emilie Agreste, Dissociation, F/M, Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth Identity Reveal, Post-Hawk Moth Defeat, Post-Reveal Pre-Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Sentimonster (Miraculous Ladybug), Sentimonster Adrien Agreste, Tags May Change, Unreliable Narrator, then there will be comfort, unless I can figure out how to continue it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27313054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missnoodles/pseuds/Missnoodles
Summary: Chat Noir always thought he and Ladybug were made for each other, but then he learned he was made for an entirely different purpose. In the aftermath of Hawkmoth's defeat, that purpose is gone forever, and Adrien struggles to find where he belongs.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Sentimonster Ladybug
Series: coin operated boy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1995730
Comments: 26
Kudos: 80
Collections: October 2020 - Dark





	coin operated boy

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to [sagansjagger](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagansjagger/works) and [rikkapikasnikka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rikkapikasnikka/works) for looking over this chapter for me!

Adrien had always found it hard to get to know Marinette. They were friends, of course, but there’d always been an unexplained distance between them that he’d never quite figured out how to cross. He’d tried, of course, but she’d always been a bit skittish, and he’d never figured out why.

But she’d never felt as far away as she did now, in the aftermath of discovering that they had been closer than he thought all along. Adrien had always imagined that seeing what lay beneath their masks would bring him and Ladybug closer, but when the wall between them was taken down, Adrien could finally see the gaping chasm that had been hiding underneath. A chasm that they couldn’t cross.

Not for lack of trying on her part, of course — Marinette had been nothing but warm and caring and open since the reveal. When they’d learned who Hawkmoth was, who  _ Adrien _ was, she hadn’t even hesitated before inviting Adrien to stay with her family. 

Adrien should have been delighted at the invitation. He should have been grateful that Marinette and her family had welcomed him with open arms. Adrien should have been able to muster up some facsimile of a human emotion, the way he’d been designed to do, but his manufactured heart was filled with intolerable blankness instead.

Adrien and Marinette should be closer than ever. And physically, they were.

But as Adrien sat and ate a home-cooked meal and watched Marinette joke with her parents, he’d never felt more isolated.

* * *

Marinette wanted to help Adrien. But she had no idea how.

Confessing her feelings, was, without a doubt, out of the question. Marinette had floated the idea briefly, thinking that it would be nice for Adrien to know someone loved him, but Alya had strongly advised her against it.

“Girl, seriously? He just found out his dad is a supervillain. The boy is a mess. Don’t put that stress on him.”

“Yeah, dude is not in a good place right now," Nino had chimed in. "Better hold off on the romance stuff." 

Marinette only resented them a little bit for assuming she’d been trying for romance. She hadn’t suggested it because she wanted Adrien to date her (although she did still want that); she just wanted him to know how important he was to her.

But maybe he didn’t want to hear that. Maybe she should just keep that to herself for now. Maybe forever.

Instead, Marinette tried her best to make him feel included. Tried being the key word — Marinette had been trying for weeks with little to show for it other than the rising acid in her stomach every time she saw the hollow look in Adrien’s eyes.

Over tonight’s dinner, she’d tried catching his attention when her father said something ridiculous in the hopes of sharing a conspiratorial glance, but his eyes never met hers. She’d tried steering the conversation towards things she knew he enjoyed, like the show he’d been discussing with Nino so passionately just a week before, but when he'd responded, the fire in his words had died. She’d even tried making  _ cat puns _ , but her father had been the only one who'd laughed.

Adrien had just smiled and taken another delicate bite of his dinner.

Marinette, on the other hand, couldn’t manage a single bite.

* * *

Adrien knew that if he told Marinette how he felt, she’d be understanding. More than understanding; Marinette would go above and beyond to support him. So would her parents.

Which is why Adrien could absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, never say anything to her about it.

He knew Marinette was worried about him, so he did his best to ease her worries. He smiled and laughed when everyone else was having a good time, and desperately tried to keep the gaping hole inside of him from swallowing Marinette and her family whole.

Marinette deserved to be happy, and she couldn’t be happy if she had to worry about him.

Adrien twisted the ring around his pinky, the one that sat next to his Miraculous. Not for the first time, he wished Marinette had just taken his mother’s ring when he’d offered.

Then she could tell him to be happy, and he would be. He’d be whatever she wanted.

Marinette had refused vehemently, insisting that it would be wrong, and shoved the ring onto his pinky where it now sat, taunting him. Adrien didn’t want it there — it didn’t belong to him. Nothing belonged to him, really; nothing ever had, and learning what he was had finally helped him accept that. He wished Marinette would accept it too. Nothing belonged to Adrien, but he could belong to  _ her _ .

Adrien wasn’t meant to be his own person. Gabriel had been very clear that Adrien was made for Emilie’s happiness, and now that she was gone for good, he needed a new purpose. He wanted his purpose to be Marinette, but she didn’t want that. 

And there wasn’t anyone else Adrien could trust with his mother’s ring.

At first, Adrien had desperately tried to make her understand, but Marinette refused, leaving him lost and adrift, desperately scrambling for something to hang onto as everything he thought he knew slipped between his fingers. He wanted to fill his aching lungs with air and then let it out in a scream for her attention.

Instead, he bit down his misery and ignored it. It’s not like his feelings were real anyway.

It’s not like he was real.

* * *

Marinette had noticed Adrien being distant, of course. Like everyone else around him, she’d been on tenterhooks since the day the world saw Hawkmoth’s true face, expecting Adrien to cry, to yell, to break down — to  _ react _ in any way.

Instead, he'd smiled.

Marinette knew he was hiding the pain — he had to be.  _ Everyone  _ knew. Adrien was exceptionally skilled at putting on a brave face, to be sure — she’d expect no less from her brave Chaton — but he’d never had to face the onslaught of worried fussing their family and friends attempted to engulf him with.

Marinette had assumed he’d lap up the attention like a starved kitten with a bowl of milk, but instead he retreated to the corner and hissed (not literally, unfortunately — Marinette would be a lot less worried if he  _ was _ acting like an actual cat).

“Adrien, dear, are you sure you’re alright sleeping on the couch again tonight?” her mother prompted as they finished off the last of their meal, looking at Adrien with a furrowed brow. “I’m sure Marinette wouldn’t mind switching with you.”

Marinette nodded enthusiastically as she chewed the last of her sausage. Of course she wouldn’t mind; Marinette was just as worried about Adrien as anyone else in the house.

“Thank you, Mrs. Cheng, but that’s not necessary,” Adrien responded with a stiff smile and blue-ringed eyes. “The couch is very comfortable. I slept just fine.”

Her mother frowned but didn’t argue. Marinette wished she would. Marinette wished she could convince Adrien herself, but every time she’d tried to talk to him — about sleeping arrangements or otherwise — he just seemed to curl further and further into himself and farther away from her.

With a pang in her chest, Marinette couldn’t help but wonder if maybe she should stop trying to reach out to him at all.

Ladybug was supposed to fix things, but for Adrien, it seemed all she could do was make things worse.

* * *

After rinsing his plate, Adrien slipped out of the kitchen while Marinette and her parents were distracted by the onerous task of deciding what to do with the leftovers. His stomach twisted at the thought of taking advantage of their hospitality like this — enjoying a home-cooked meal and shirking on the cleanup — but what else could he do?

Adrien didn’t know how to do dishes. He didn’t know where they kept the containers to store food or what food to keep and what to throw away.

And he especially didn’t know how to be part of a family.

How could he, when instead of flesh and blood he was born of feathers and the desperate hopes of a barren woman? How could he, when he’d just been a doll playing the part of a son? Just a doll that was doted on for years by its creator but never quite managed to be a real boy.

A doll that his mother’s husband had tried to keep carefully boxed up, preserved in mint condition until she returned to play with him again.

As he climbed up the steps towards Marinette’s room, Adrien visualized himself shedding the weight of his guilt as he went, letting it fall down, down, down as he rose higher and higher. He could feel himself becoming lighter, almost weightless, as the noise of the family bustling in the kitchen below grew fainter and easier to shut out.

Adrien shouldn’t take advantage of the Dupain-Chengs' hospitality, but Adrien wasn’t a good person. He wasn’t a person at all.

He had to remember that. The lead weight in his gut was a lie, manufactured just like the rest of him, and the sooner Adrien learned to let go of the illusion of humanity, the better off everyone would be.

Marinette still clung tightly to the idea that it didn’t matter, that Adrien was still a real boy despite his origination. But Adrien wasn’t a real boy, and the longer he let her pretend he was, the more both of them would be hurt when he inevitably failed to live up to her expectations. Adrien was meant to make her happy, but he couldn’t do that by pretending to be something more than he was.

She could save them both the pain by remolding him into what she wanted, but Marinette clung tightly to her human morality, refusing to take away his free will. He didn’t know how to make her understand he’d never had any in the first place.

Marinette couldn’t accept what he was, and without that acceptance, he had no place here with her. He’d stayed up night after night, gazing into the darkness and hoping the darkness would answer back, until finally, Adrien had stopped looking for a purpose that fit in Marinette’s life. Once he’d stopped trying to find a way to belong with humanity, Adrien had been able to see a new path — one he wouldn’t have to go on alone.

Adrien grunted as he pushed open the hatch door to Marinette’s room. Marinette had said over and over that she wanted him to make decisions, that she thought he was real, that she trusted him.

As he made his way into the darkness of her room towards his target, Adrien accepted that Marinette had been lying. She’d been lying to him, and she’d been lying to herself.

Marinette didn’t trust him. If she had, she wouldn’t have tried to keep the secrets of the Guardians of the Miraculous from him. Adrien wouldn’t have to sneak around while she was out or sleeping, collecting forbidden knowledge as he crafted his plan.

Marinette’s trunk creaked as he lifted the lid and pulled out the smooth, red egg he’d been seeking. Silently, Adrien mimicked the complex series of motions he’d seen Marinette use to open the compartments. He’d had to watch from the shadows more than once to get the sequence exactly, but he’d finally gotten the correct order this time. Adrien grinned widely as the compartment he’d wanted clicked open. He wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t risk being overhead.

Really, A drien couldn’t blame Marinette for not trusting him with the knowledge of how to open the Miracle Box.

_ After all,  _ Adrien thought as he turned the glistening, azure brooch over in his hand,  _ she was right not to trust me. _

Adrien was a monster after all.

And without any Dr. Frankenstein left to watch him, the monster was free to resurrect his own bride.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for the October Challenge on the Miraculous Fanworks discord server so feel free to join and blame them all for this.
> 
> That said, I have published this as a one shot but I do not think I am strong enough to leave them this sad so if I can figure out how to fix this miss I've made I will.


End file.
